As is known, for wireless communication in a cellular network, the network includes base stations which manage communications between mobile devices. According to the long term evolution (LTE) Standards developed as part of the 3GPP Standard, a mechanism has been introduced in an attempt to save power at the mobile devices. There is an ongoing requirement to reduce power consumption of such mobile devices as the quantity of data transmitted over the wireless network steadily increases. According to the approach adopted in the LTE Standard, a wireless device can initiate a discontinuous reception (DRX) and/or discontinuous transmission (DTX) which allows it to turn the radio to a sleep state for long periods, based on some predetermined inactivity timer values negotiated with the base station. In the LTE Standard, the base station is referred to as an e Node B (eNB).
However, these inactivity timer values are too generic and cannot take into account specific network traffic activity occurring at the wireless device at any given time.
It is an aim of the present invention to enhance power saving for a radio access device.